Thanksgiving

Tom and I headed to Utah for Thanksgiving. Since we both have very large families (many of whom live in Utah) we were blessed to have many dinners/visits. Unfortunately, since we had so many people to visit we didn't get to see anyone as much as we would have liked. This is probably going to be a really boring post about what we did on our trip, so feel free to just look at the pictures.

We arrived in Salt Lake on Wednesday afternoon. Although we were a little nervous about traveling the day before Thanksgiving, our wonderful neighbors Catherine and Nathan were kind enough to give us a ride to the airport and the lines were much shorter than we had anticipated. My brother picked us up and we stopped by to visit my dad at work. Then Wednesday evening we were able to have dinner with my stepdad's family followed by pie with Tom's aunt and uncle (Dave and Bonnie), three of Tom's cousins (Julie, Lisa, and Dave), Dave's fiance, and Julie's friend. I had never met Tom's cousins Dave (he just got back from his mission) and Lisa (she lives in London) so it was so kind of them to go out of their way to meet us for some delicious pie. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures on Wednesday, but we did have a wonderful time.

Thursday morning we had a delicious Thanksgiving breakfast with my dad and two of my sisters. Since I LOVE breakfast food, this was a real treat. I was sad not to be able to spend more time with my dad, but since we were sharing a car with my brother and sister, we didn't get to do everything that we wanted.
Later Thursday we had a dinner with my mom's extended family. My grandma has had a tough year health-wise and I have been wanting to visit with her for months so it was great to be able to get together with my everyone. Some people enjoyed trying on my grandma's new wig:
I also spent some time chatting with my aunts about some potential baby names (I am very open to suggestions, hint hint).
Friday mid-morning I went shopping with my mom and my two youngest sisters. The stores were surprisingly un-busy and it was SO NICE not to have to deal with LA traffic and lines and parking. Later that afternoon we stopped by the Jackman family reunion and visited with Tom's grandparents and some other relatives that I don't really know very well. Here is a picture of Tom and I with his grandparents:
Friday evening we went out for a family dinner (going out to eat as a family is a rare treat) to celebrate my stepbrother Tyson going on his mission to Philadelphia. I was very happy to get to see my very cute niece Hailey who I haven't seen since she was born last Christmas Eve.
Saturday my parents went to the Utah/BYU game so we dropped them off at the stadium and spent some time in Provo. First we visited with Tom's grandmother who has been in a nursing home in Orem since she had a stroke shortly before our wedding. We had a delightful visit. Tom and I visited her regularly while we were at BYU and this was the most cheerful that we have seen her since her stroke. Here are a couple of pictures of Tom and his grandma. After we took the first one, she said that Tom was too tall and wanted to take a second picture.
Afterward we met up with some of Tom's friends in Provo and they played World of Warcraft while I walked around the BYU campus and spent some time in the bookstore. I'm going to end this post at Saturday and start a new one for Sunday because Sunday had very little to do with Thanksgiving.